


'Til the End of the Line

by Leavingfreedomandchoice



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, not really - Freeform, this is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leavingfreedomandchoice/pseuds/Leavingfreedomandchoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not much to be said besides that they reached the end of the line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til the End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> I really wish I owned Captain America and Bucky Barnes but I do not.

Bucky got the call from Director Fury at exactly fifteen minutes past nine in the morning. He had just finished up a job in Russia by taking down an old HYDRA operative the night before and was just about to board the plane back to the states when his phone rang. He had been forced to drop his bags and answer the call leaving the poor woman ushering people into the plane to sigh dramatically and begin waving people past the strange man with the metal arm, Lord knows how a man like that even got through security.  
  
“Fury? I’m about to board a plane. What do you need?”  
  
“Barnes, get your ass back here as fast as possible. It’s got to do with Rogers.”  
  
Bucky was about to ask what in God’s name had they let happen to Steve when Fury hung up. Bucky stared at the phone in his hand for a full minute before shoving the thing nervously into his pocket and pushing back to the front of the line. He boarded the plane and sat in his seat waiting for take off with a leg that just wouldn't keep still. When the plane finally took off, it still took about 10 hours for the goddamn tin can to land in New York City where a man in a suit was waiting for him patiently. Bucky nodded at the suit and followed the man out the door, trying his damnedest not to sprint to the car. They got in the car and Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to block out any unwelcome ideas at the condition Steve was in. He didn’t even know what had happened or where Steve had been, but Fury wouldn’t have called unless it was bad, and thank god the driver knew SHEILD’s secret back routes or else they would have been stuck in the city’s infamous bumper to bumper traffic only moving after 10 minutes of idling. As it were, they reached the hospital in just over 30 minutes which felt like pushing it to Bucky, after all he’d already wasted so much time on that damned flight.  
  
When the car pulled up to the hospital, it had barely stopped before Bucky threw open the door stumbling over the curb and into the front door. Bucky stopped in the middle of the main entrance and scanned the room for anyone who looked familiar. He didn’t have to look for long before he spotted Stark and Fury whispering in the waiting room. Bucky strode over to the pair who looked up just as the Winter Soldier reached them.  
  
“What the hell happened to Steve?” Bucky asked the question trying to disguise the fear so obviously in his voice, but one look at Stark and Bucky was pretty certain he’d done a shit job of hiding it.  
  
“He’s- “ Tony stopped short when Fury’s hand came up to silence him .  
  
“Captain America-“  
  
“I don’t care about Captain America,” Bucky interrupted the director, “I care about my friend, my best friend.”  
  
“Fine. Steve Rogers was shot in the back by a Red Skull operative sometime this morning and three times in the chest by Sharon Carter once he arrived at Avengers Mansion not too long after the original shot. And now we’re here.”  
  
Bucky swallowed and looked around the waiting room. All the Avengers were there including Thor who’d somehow managed to hear about Cap and made it there even before Bucky did, which didn’t seem possible but Bucky was used to that by now. What he wasn’t used to was his best friend in some hospital bed hooked up to and IV and a heart monitor and being given who knows how many drugs. Steve’s health wasn’t ever great when they were kids, but he’d never gone to the hospital, he’d never been that close to dying, not really. Steve had never gotten anything bad enough to where a couple aspirin and a hug from his best friend couldn’t fix, but now...  
  
A nurse came into the waiting room asking if anyone was there for a Captain Steven Grant Rogers, and when the Avengers and Bucky all stood and faced her she paled and told them they’d have to go in one at a time. Just from that Bucky could tell nothing was going to be okay, and the nurse pulling Fury aside to tell him something that made the unusually stone-cold director of SHEILD tear up was not a good sign. Bucky let the others go in first if only to delay seeing Steve hooked up to at least ten different wires. Their visits were brief and all of them looked wrecked after coming out of the hospital room, and by the time the last Avenger had come out of the hospital room Bucky had to take a deep breath and count to ten before making his way toward the door.  
  
The room was bright, and Bucky couldn’t help feeling like it shouldn’t be, but Steve loved the sun so Bucky guessed he’d have to let it go just this once. Steve look, well, steve looked awful. His face had paled to the point where he almost looked identical to the skinny asthmatic teenager he’d shared an apartment with in Brooklyn before the war started up, but he smiled as if nothing was wrong when Bucky walked into the room.  
  
“Hey, Bucky!”  
  
“Hey, Steve. How ya feelin’?”  
  
Steve shrugged looking at the heart monitor beside him, and both men watched as the line blipped ever so slowly. Bucky couldn’t care less how much slower the damned thing got so long as it kept going. He’d just got back to Steve and he’d be damned if he let the guy go now when he hadn’t seen him in what felt like a million years, though it was probably only closer to one hundred.  
  
“I’m alright, I guess. They say I’m done for, Buck.”  
  
And Bucky doesn’t cry, but tears threaten to spill from his eyes if he so much as blinks because it’s too much too soon and Bucky never even told Steve how he felt, damn it. Bucky figured he’d have to tell him, but Steve is talking about New York City and how he still has their old flat down in Brooklyn and how he wants Bucky to have it because his name is one the papers too since it didn’t feel right to buy the place without him and- Bucky doesn’t let him finish. Instead, he presses his lips against Steve’s and doesn’t give a fuck about the consequence until the monitor beside him starts speeding up, and they both start laughing at that. And everything is fine for a few fragile seconds that Bucky swears he will hang on to for the rest of his goddamn life if that’s all he gets, but then Steve starts to cough, a horrible wracking cough all too reminiscent of Steve’s old asthma attacks. Bucky almost wished that was what it was instead of the truth, but the monitor has sped up again even though Bucky isn’t even that close to Steve, and a couple of nurses dashed in to help the man lying on the hospital bed. Steve almost closes his eyes before he turns to Bucky and with hoarse voice Steve chokes out four last words.  
  
“’Cause I’m with you...”  
  
“”Til the end of the line.”  
  
The heart monitor’s beat slowed to one continuous tone, and then Steve was gone.  
  
Bucky had to be dragged out of the hospital room by Stark and Banner, and he wasn’t screaming or sobbing, though it may have been better if he was. But, no, the Winter Soldier sat resolute on the chair the two men dragged him to and stared straight ahead, ignoring the tears that stream from his eyes whenever he blinks. Bucky didn’t say a word and he didn’t completely lose his composure until he’s back at Steve and his old apartment in that filthy tenament in Brooklyn and suddenly every thing within reach is being hurled at the wall. Bucky falls down onto his knees, his hands bloody like after he got into a fight when he was a kid, but this time Steve wouldn’t show up and bandage his hands and tell him it’d be alright. Steve wasn’t going to show up and ask to go to Coney Island that weekend. Steve wouldn’t be doing much more than inspiring patriotism in the hearts of Americans from now on.  
  
Bucky was sure that line at the hospital stopped because Steve wasn’t with him, not anymore. They'd promised each other to the end of the line, but their lines were supposed to end together not like this, never like this.


End file.
